Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined KNX In Depth’s Rob Archer and Charles Feldman for an exclusive interview Wednesday, touching on everything from affordable housing to the Hollywood strikes to trash collection.
Listen to the full interview:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
After nine months on the job, are you surprised by some of the things you can do that you thought you couldn’t, or things you thought you could do and found out you can’t?
“It’s not just a matter of what I can’t do, but it’s a matter of how long it takes to get things done … There’s a homeless encampment and I want it moved right away. Well, I have to go find hotel rooms. And then there's the complexity of contracts and all of that type of bureaucracy. That, of course, I didn't experience in either Washington or Sacramento.”
What do you think about the migrant buses coming from Texas?
“What is concerning is that if it was legitimate, if it was sincere, then someone in the government in Texas would notify us and coordinate with us. That's not what's happening … I was particularly concerned last week when we thought we were going to have terrible weather conditions. The fact that coming from the state of Texas where they're used to hurricanes, used to dramatic weather events, that they would send a bus in those conditions.”
When you were running for office, you pledged to house 17,000 people in the first year. Where are you now?
“I do know that in the first six months, 14,000 were housed … One of the most important things we were gonna do was really eliminate a lot of the bureaucracy that caused the delays. So one of the first things I did, I think it was in my first week, I did an executive directive that fast-tracked building … So because of our fast-tracking, what took six months is now taking about 30 days.”
A lot of money is being spent on homelessness programs and buying properties, and people are concerned about where it’s going. Are you worried about fraud?
“I'm worried about the money being spent, too, and it is very expensive, and I would love to delve into that as to why, but I don't have the concerns about fraud … But I want to also talk about the money, how much we spend when people stay on the streets. How much it costs in terms of the fire department, your hospitals, the police department, for goodness sake, that have to go over and over and over again to encampments.
But people are right in saying, I want to know where my money goes. So one thing that we don't have a problem doing at all, and I believe our city controller has already done, is putting on the website exactly how much money we're spending.”
Many people are leaving L.A. because housing is too expensive. Why haven’t we built more affordable housing?
“As I've gone around the city, there is an openness to building now. I was at a town hall where we were all yelled at. But then I've been in many meetings where neighbors are saying, ‘you know what, maybe not on this street, but this street would work really well.’ So I do think there's a recognition that we need to build.
But what really troubles me is that people who work here can't afford to live here. And my first experience, by the way, as mayor, was with the [LAUSD] strike … When I met school employees who told me that they were homeless, but yet they worked full time, that was very, very troubling.”
Can you afford to live here?
“Yeah, I can afford to live here. But you know what? My kids can't.”
Why is there so much trash all over the city?
“Do you know that we have 900 vacancies in L.A. sanitation? Do you know we have 300 vacancies in street services?”
Is that because we don’t pay enough?
“No, I don’t think so. And by the way, when I say vacancies, I'm not talking about these positions are vacant because we don't have the money. We have the money for these positions. So I'm gonna do a little commercial and say if you wanna come work for this city, these are good union paying jobs with pensions, great benefits. We need to hire people in sanitation.”
You’ve alluded to working quietly behind the scenes to end the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes. Do you think you could be doing more?
“What I could do is, I could grandstand and have a press conference and call everybody to the carpet … But one thing about me and you'll find this in my administration and I might get criticized for it, but I don't run to the microphones and the cameras and grandstand. And so you found with the UTLA as well as the school employees, I got the same criticism. What people didn't know was that we had actually been talking and meeting, and ultimately you saw them at City Hall.
[Film and TV] is our foundational industry in this city. And so the seriousness of it and people getting back to discussion, in a way I guess I would describe it as one step forward, two steps backwards … So I guess if I had to put it in its broader context, the fact that this is well over 100 days, I would describe this as a step back, but there had been a step forward.”
On homelessness and drug use at Metro stations:
“What happened with Metro is, during the pandemic when all of us were sequestered at home, the unhoused essentially took over the stations as well as the trains … There needs to be law enforcement that's there. But we also started a program of ambassadors, which are a lot of people that are hired to just kind of move things along, a variety of different tactics … What we're talking about long term at Metro is that we're going to have to actually build housing on Metro and provide services.”
There seems to be a lot of corruption happening in the L.A. city government. What can we do to root it out?
“One of the commitments that I made during my campaign is that if I was elected, I would bring in an ethics czar. As a matter of fact, it was President Obama's ethics czar, Norm Eisen, and he did come in and he did an ethics review. As a matter of fact, one of his recommendations was for us to hire a full time ethics person, which we did. So we have a lawyer on staff who basically scrutinizes everything that we do and make sure that we adhere to high ethical standards.
But I do think when you look at corruption in L.A., almost all of it is tied to development. And so we really need to look at that whole process. But you know what, I am hoping that dealing with some of the red tape and bureaucracy might also address the corruption in the sense that some of that is to fast track, is to bypass the bureaucracy. Well, maybe if we clean up the bureaucracy, we could get rid of the corruption that is connected to development.”
How prepared is the city of L.A. for the hotter, wetter, more dangerous weather that climate change is bringing?
“It's incredible that you asked me that question today because my answer is completely different than it would have been two weeks ago. Because two weeks ago, I would have said, I feel that we are prepared, because the last two mayors started addressing climate change and put in a lot of programs and procedures for us to adjust. And then we got hit with a potential hurricane … So I do feel that that is a wake up call to tell us now, we can't just look at other states and say, well, that could never happen here.”
What’s going on with payment for rental property owners that lost money during the eviction moratorium?
“Let me just tell you, it is absolutely a priority because one of the things I worry about with homelessness is that we might experience a big increase because there are thousands of people facing eviction. But the worst thing in the world is for evictions to take place and small property owners to default on their mortgages.
So what you should know is that when I was in Congress and COVID happened, we passed resources for both the landowners as well as the tenants. And you also should know that the city council passed the ULA proposition that gave money for rental assistance. So if you give us a couple of weeks, because it literally just passed yesterday … there is relief for landlords.”
If you were tasked with telling a public school classroom what you think about the state of the country right now, what would you tell them?
“If I'm talking to a group of young people, I need to inspire them. And so I'm gonna tell them one thing. But if I'm talking to you, I might say something different. I think the state of our country is that we're in trouble. I think our democracy is in trouble. I think our democracy is seriously at risk. I would not say that to a group of high school students. I need them to be involved and excited, and I would tell them how they can graduate and change the world.”
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